January 2006

Seems to be a lot of mistakes being made in the customer service-o-sphere of late, so I thought I’d jump on the chance to help us all learn how-to and how-not-to.

For a few days, I’ll post about one particular mistake and see if some of you can add some advice to the fix.

Todays customer service blunder is:

I’m not a true believer in that old saying about the customer always being right, but they are always the customer and they just might be right.

Never, never, never try to out argue the customer. You might be fighting with bad info and that would make you unarmed, in actuality.

Just because someone in your company told you something, that may or may not make it the truth. Your coworkers are not infallible and some may be plain old stupid or liars.

Don’t try to out scream, outwit or outmaneuver a customer.

Take all their info, their concerns, their contact info and give them a time when you’ll have all the info you need to make an intelligent decision and get back with them.

If you cannot make a decision by the appointed time, call them and tell them so. Never let a deadline go by without communicating with the customer.

When you no longer need customers, then and only then can you get away with telling them to take their business elsewhere.

In todays market, you take a real chance that they might have a blog or newsletter that goes out to 50,000 people that will listen to their one-sided view of the situation and you just lost 50,000 potential customers.

A lot, let’s say the majority, of middle managers, let’s call them the great unwashed and foolish ones, are too stupid to even fathom this and will let their customer service personnel be rude and condecending to customers. The marketing department has no idea and the sales force can’t understand why they can’t sell icewater in the desert.

If your company is struggling to make any headway in your market, maybe you should hire someone to be a customer of your company and tell you what they run into when dealing with your customer service.

A lot of times, all it takes is a very basic approach like this to find the root of your failure to grow.

Sometimes word-of-mouth badvertising will override any and all efforts you make to grow your company.

Believe me, you can tell a customer to shove it, but they’ll tell a helluva lot more people than you can ever imagine and then those people will tell some people and those people will tell some people and those ……..

Sales Coach has a post up about the best books you’ve ever read about selling.

Go by and leave your thoughts and let’s share our reads with her readers.

Here’s a link to Customer Service Experience. Glenn Ross looks at a site where customers can go to complain and the common thread he found in all the complaints.

I thought it fit in with a few of my experiences of late.

Every day of the week I make sales calls. Every day of the week I see people make sales calls.

A large majority of people who a presentation of some kind do it poorly in one way or another.

It’s kind of like a first date. You’re going to be judged very quickly. Someone’s watching you, even when you think they aren’t. You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. You know all the cliches.

Here’s some random, wandering thoughts, tips and rules for you. Hopefully they’ll help you do a better job of presenting yourself and representing your company.

Think professional. Before you get there, turn off the rap and think about the customer and what you can do for them. Not what you can do for yourself. It’s all about them, not you and what you’re gonna buy with the commission from the sale. Find the benefits for them, not the features that impress your marketing department.

Don’t chew gum or smoke in the clients office. If you have to smoke, do it well before you arrive. When you get out of your car, use that small bottle of mouthwash that you have and freshen your breath and the parking lot.

Use the restroom someplace else. Make sure to find a place to relieve yourself other than their office. Use that stop to focus, freshen and finalize.

Stand upon greeting the client. I hate it when I go out to the waiting area to get a vendor and they’re sprawled all over our furniture. I hate it even more when they are on their cellphone, emailing from their handheld or worse, asleep and dreaming.

Sit where I tell you, not where you like. I hate it when someone moves something out of a chair in my office and puts the stuff on the floor. I put that there so you wouldn’t sit there. I wanted you to sit in the open chair.

Don’t handle anything on my desk or on my shelves. Yes, I play golf. Yes, I got a hole-in-one with that ball. Yes, Titleist sent that certificate. No, I don’t care that you touched them…I actually hate it.

Please bring your own pen and notepaper. I’m not an office supply store. I have other career aspirations besides supply officer.

Small talk is fine, but move towards the point of your visit. I don’t mind a how’s-the-family question or two, if we’ve met before, but let’s not exchange pictures just yet.

Turn off you cellphone and/or handheld device before you get to our waiting area. ‘Nuff said. If you want to know why, don’t even think about making sales calls.

There’s a lot more advice and info out there about etiquette. I hope this gets you started towards wanting to find it.

Here’s the scenario :

Everyday, I go into a convenience store or stop at a newspaper box and try to buy a copy of USA Today.

Too many days I get my heart broken by an empty box or an empty shelf.

Subscribe dummy !, is what you’re screamin’.

Well, I’m a salesman and not at my home every weekday, so that ain’t the solution.

The solution is for those that fill the shelves and the boxes to increase the number of papers they put in the box UNTIL they have 1 left everyday.

Here’s how it should work. You go into Duke’s Donuts, on Monday, and you leave them 10 papers. They sell donuts, coffee and newspapers to people like me.

Tuesday morning when you come back, all the papers are gone, so you leave 15.

Wednesday you come back and they’re all gone again, so you leave 20.

Thursday you come back and there’s 2 left so you leave 20 again, not 18.

Why ?

Because you always want some product on the shelf or in the box. Never, ever leave so few that there’s no product.

I buy a USA Today at 10 PM, sometimes on my way into my hotel. Old news is still news and it beats the heck out of the TV news, so don’t think the sales of a newspaper stop at noon.

Never let your shelf or box run dry. All that does is make people like me stop at other boxes or convenience stores.

Adjust your inventory til you average having one or two left every morning…not zero !

I just added biz.erati w/ Miz Liz to my Blog Roll and suggest you go subscribe to her RSS feed, bookmark the site and just give her your number to call when she writes a new post.

It’s gonna be that good.

I look forward to a good lesson every now and then and some fine writing every time she puts finger to keyboard.

Go over and visit and tell her Mike sent you !